Prelude: The Letter

The night was dark, very much so. It was only a day after the new-moon, and even that sliver of light was covered by a blanket of rain-heavy clouds. There wasn't a corner in Gotham that wasn't bathed in black, and even the streets were dangerously dark except immediately under the working street lamps.

The circle of light that pitched upwards through the sky had been turned on quite late (just past midnight), so Batman had immediately assumed it must be an emergency. Commissioner Gordon almost never used the Bat Signal at a time like this. It didn't take the vigilante long to make his way to the source of the light, but when he did land atop the Gotham City Police building, Gordon was nowhere to be seen.

While he turned the bright light off, the woman who had called him there stepped out of her hiding spot silently, a hand hidden behind her back with the other perched on her curved hip. Sensing the villain, the dark knight turned to face her.

"Hey there, B-man!" the cheery voice was matched with a wide grin and an enthusiastic wave.

"Harley Quinn," was the deep growl of a response.

"I hope you weren't too busy or anythin', B-man, but I didn't have a phone number or address or nothin', but this thing is real helpful, ain't it?" Harley was excited as always, but with a quick scan seemed quite alone.

"What do you want? Where's the Joker?"

"Ooh, not very chatty are you?" Harley pouted.

"Quinn," He was gruff and intimidating, but that didn't seem to worry the clown a bit.

"Oh, alright. Mr J's at home. It's just you 'n' me, B." It didn't relax the Bat at all. It had to be a trap. He eyed the hidden arm and Harley noticed, "I just wanted you to give this to Batgirl. Y'know, no phone to call and all that."

In her hand, she revealed an enveloped letter and held it up so that Bruce could see the scrawled name, 'Batgirl' on it with a red kiss on the corner. Instead of taking it, he eyed it with apprehension.

"Oh, c'mon. It's a letter, not a bomb," she rolled her big blue eyes, "jus' take it."

Batman stepped forward and took it between his forefinger and thumb, lifting the back of it open.

"Now that's just rude! Do you always read other people's mail?" Harley complained loudly, "It's just an invitation asking if Batgirl wanted to have some coffee some time."

"Why?"

"Geez, because I'm bored. Mistah J's too busy to spend time with me and Ivy's not around. Batgirl's the only other girl I ever see much – y'know, when she's arresting me – and I wanna get to know her." Harley was pouting with her arms crossed.

"I'm not taking this Harley. She's not stupid. Neither am I. You'll have to play your twisted games somewhere else."

Without giving her time to argue, the dark knight turned and stalked off, a shrill voice following after him as a crumpled ball of paper fell from his hand.

"Well you're just a big mean meanie!"

As the man disappeared, Harley pranced over and picked up the envelope and smoothed it out on her leg before taking the letter out and reading over it again.

Batgirl,

Hi, it's Harley Quinn.

I wanted to know if you're up for getting some coffee some time.

I know it's kind of weird and all, but I haven't gotten to kick your butt in a while and I'm starting to miss it. Pudding's been travelling around a lot, so I don't have anything to do. Hope you can come!

If you agree, you can contact me by sending a letter to the address written on the back.

Love, HQ.

There was another lipstick kiss beside her initials and the address on the back of the page in her doctor-scrawl.

Harrumphing, Harley kicked some pieces of gravel before bounding back over the gaps between buildings, heading home again to set her back-up plan into motion.

The next time Bruce saw Barbara Gordon (in the Batcave where she was typing something into a computer) he warned her that Harley Quinn was up to something.

"What?" She didn't look up while her fingers moved nimbly over the keyboard.

"I don't know yet, but I think it has something to do with you."

Finally she broke her concentration, though her hands didn't stop moving, "What? Why? What happened?"

As set about his task of updating the computer, Bruce gave a brief recount of his encounter. When he finished, Barbara's brow was furrowed in thought before she refocused and they lapsed into a comfortable silence.